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Racism, Blacklists and Onyx Path Publishing (a thread)
CW: Racism, Lying, Threats, Punishment, Black Listing
I’ve written for, developed and consulted on numerous Role Playing Games (RPGs) and Live Action Role Playing (LARPs) games since the late 1990s/early 2000s
CW: Racism, Lying, Threats, Punishment, Black Listing
I’ve written for, developed and consulted on numerous Role Playing Games (RPGs) and Live Action Role Playing (LARPs) games since the late 1990s/early 2000s
including Vampire the Masquerade and other game properties. I have degrees in political science, criminal justice and international law. My graduate work was in the area of counterintelligence, democratic institutions and the cultural drivers of war
, but I’ve spent a great deal of my career working for energy companies and think tanks. My writing on the Middle East, War Crimes, Data Collection, and Counterintelligence have been cited in numerous articles and essays. My work in RPGs was a hobby I pursued earnestly,
but the past few years have allowed me to focus more and more on fiction writing as a career.
I’m an Arab American of Palestinian and Algerian ancestry, and I have had to navigate systemic racism, bigotry, and islamophobia in the RPG industry for over 20 years.
I’m an Arab American of Palestinian and Algerian ancestry, and I have had to navigate systemic racism, bigotry, and islamophobia in the RPG industry for over 20 years.
The more success & exposure I garnered, the more push back I encountered from those either uninterested in including diverse voices in RPGs or those who only wanted to promote diversity performatively, but never wanted to allow people of color any creative control or independence
My post today is not a historical recounting of all of the incidents of racism I’ve faced personally or that I have heard of tangentially. This post is about a recent and specific incident of racism that originated from employees at Onyx Path Publishing that impacted me directly
and their attempt to silence others and to hide the truth of this incident from me.
Synopsis: This post details racist actions taken by employees at Onyx Path Publishing. An employee at Onyx Path spread an unfounded and negative rumor about me to another company (Modiphius)
Synopsis: This post details racist actions taken by employees at Onyx Path Publishing. An employee at Onyx Path spread an unfounded and negative rumor about me to another company (Modiphius)
during or after a bilateral meeting. When I heard about this smear, another employee at Onyx Path attempted to prevent me from discovering the full story of the matter by lying to me and instead punished a Modiphius employee with refusal to work on future Modiphius projects
because of my discovery of Onyx Path’s racist attempt to black list me. Instead of telling me the truth, this employee at Onyx Path personally blamed a person of color at Modiphius with an implied threat that the Modiphius employee could be fired if their employer was informed
they were the whistle-blower on this matter. I held off on addressing this issue with Onyx Path for over a year because I had no confidence that the matter would be addressed professionally given the company’s track record. I only approached them now after their recent hire of an
outside Human Resources consultant.
My only request was for a public apology so that the damage done by this smear against me could be mitigated and so that the racist implications of a secret black list and/or smear campaign targeting an author of color could be addressed.
My only request was for a public apology so that the damage done by this smear against me could be mitigated and so that the racist implications of a secret black list and/or smear campaign targeting an author of color could be addressed.
After one conference call with Rich Thomas and the HR consultant Georgina, Onyx Path decided the matter was not a company issue and that no public apology was necessary. I contacted their employees directly for apologies, and while both provided me with statements that admitted
to no liability, only one attempted to address the issues of white privilege and racism that made this smear and cover up of this smear possible. The other was curt, halfhearted and condescending. Neither could be considered earnest apologies and Onyx Path again refused to
publish them in any form or make their own statement.
I make this public statement now as a way to redress the potential harm done to my reputation and to push back against the structural problems in the RPG industry that have made it nearly impossible for more diverse voices
I make this public statement now as a way to redress the potential harm done to my reputation and to push back against the structural problems in the RPG industry that have made it nearly impossible for more diverse voices
to attain any creative or administrative power.
Statement: In June 2019 at the UK Game Expo, Matt McElroy of Onyx Path Publishing told a developer at Modiphius that I was a problem and that they would not work with me on RPG projects because I “shitted on them on social media”.
Statement: In June 2019 at the UK Game Expo, Matt McElroy of Onyx Path Publishing told a developer at Modiphius that I was a problem and that they would not work with me on RPG projects because I “shitted on them on social media”.
Supposedly, according to McElroy, “it was known at Onyx Path” that I was a problem. There is disagreement between Modiphius and Onyx Path if this smearing of me occurred during a business meeting or afterwards during a private conversation.
While McElroy insinuated that I was not welcome to work at Onyx Path, currently Onyx Path maintains that is not the case and that I’ve never been on one of their black lists. Onyx Path also clarified to me that they have never had any proof that I have ever spoken poorly of them
on social media. When I questioned McElroy about this, he stated that he had heard I was a problem from one of the other two Onyx Path staffers in the meeting, though he did not clarify if that person was the owner Rich Thomas or a developer named Matt Dawkins.
I was contacted by a Modiphius employee soon after this convention, as I was currently working on multiple projects for the company and they asked me to check my social media for anything that Onyx Path could have construed as “shit talking”.
Though at no point did Modiphius make me feel my employment hinged on my proving my innocence. I of course found nothing in my social media and I was told the basics of the above story. While the racist effects of Onyx Path’s actions against me are undeniable,
I was unsure if there was racist intent and I was hesitant to quarrel with highly placed white RPG figures such as Matt McElroy who is a leading figure at DriveThruRpg, the ST Vault, Onyx Path and Flames Rising. Not to mention Rich Thomas the owner of Onyx Path or the Onyx Path
Developer Matt Dawkins. I decided to let the matter be, as it was not the first time I had encountered bigotry, racism, white privilege or borderline cases of all of the above.
Several months later in Sept. 2019 I asked Matt Dawkins about this issue, as I didn’t know McElroy
Several months later in Sept. 2019 I asked Matt Dawkins about this issue, as I didn’t know McElroy
and had some trust for Dawkins. I had recommended he work on a book with me for Modiphius and I believed we had a good working relationship. Dawkins was an early supporter of my work on Mummy and other WoD titles when he produced YouTube videos as the Gentleman Gamer in the time
before he himself became an RPG writer. When I asked him if I had been smeared or black listed, Dawkins claimed complete ignorance, despite having been in the above meeting at UK Game Expo between Onyx Path and Modiphius. He claimed he did not know McElroy well
and that he’d never heard my name referenced in a negative way by anyone at Onyx Path. He suggested I contact McElroy directly, but Dawkins' denial was adamant. He also said that he checked the company’s black list and that I was not on it. I was actually relieved on some level
and just assumed that McElroy had some personal issue with me and that Modiphius had told him to stuff it.
I would later find out that Dawkins was lying to me and he continued to hide the truth from me until I contacted Onyx Path directly and formally complained to their newly
I would later find out that Dawkins was lying to me and he continued to hide the truth from me until I contacted Onyx Path directly and formally complained to their newly
appointed HR Consultant. Dawkins thus enabled a racist smear against me to stand and if not for his later actions to punish and threaten an employee at Modiphius, I might never have found out the truth.
A few weeks after I contacted Dawkins about this issue and he denied it,
A few weeks after I contacted Dawkins about this issue and he denied it,
he would be contacted by a developer at Modiphius asking for Dawkins to write a blog post for an upcoming project. Dawkins refused and said that he personally blamed this Modiphius employee for my knowledge of the smear against me. Dawkins deduced that because this developer was
also in the UK Games Expo meeting he must have been the whistle-blower, this Modiphus developer also happened to be the only person of color in the meeting as well. In this exchange, Dawkins wasn't angry that a brown author was being smeared by his colleague, but that Modiphius
did not keep silent about McElroy's request to black list me. Dawkins instead tells this developer that he refuses to work for Modiphius again and that it’s his fault personally, the threatening implication of that being he could be fired if his boss was to find out he was the
whistle-blower. The conversation ends with Dawkins saying he may reconsider in the future if Modiphius improves its ability to keep things confidential. In short, silence in the face of misdeeds was his expectation and unfortunately this is the same culture of silence that has
made the RPG industry a ripe hunting ground for predators, abusers and racists.
It was this conversation between Dawkins and the Modiphius developer that dispelled any benefit of the doubt I had left that I had not been smeared by McElroy and that Dawkins had not lied to me
It was this conversation between Dawkins and the Modiphius developer that dispelled any benefit of the doubt I had left that I had not been smeared by McElroy and that Dawkins had not lied to me
about it in hopes of covering it up. When I spoke to Onyx Path over a conference call about this matter a few weeks ago I asked them how they had discovered that I had found out about the smear against me.
I asked Onyx Path if they found out I knew because “I had approached Matt Dawkins about the racist black list?”, Onyx Path’s HR consultant responded with one word... “Yes.” https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qa8rNeqQbGGLpJm7PfMB3z00zcHMVAcobQj_ZRjvNgc/edit?usp=sharing
It is impossible to see into the hearts of others. No one can know if someone is intrinsically racist, and I personally do not believe racism is an intrinsic quality of human beings. But we are all capable of racist actions, and when Onyx Path employee Matt McElroy used their
authority and privilege to demean, smear and potentially black list one of the few Palestinian-American authors working in RPGs, that was racist. When Onyx Path employee Matt Dawkins lied to me about the facts and instead took punitive action against another company to keep me
in the dark, that was racist. Facing that and empowering diverse voices in the industry to challenge these structural problems is the only long term solution.
All I ever asked for was a public and sincere apology for patently racist actions by employees representing Onyx Path,
All I ever asked for was a public and sincere apology for patently racist actions by employees representing Onyx Path,
but voices like mine are so weak in the RPG world that I was not even able to win that modest reparation for myself. I write this statement in hopes of empowering the next creative person of color and educating those they may work for in this industry.
Hopefully they'll never be put in a position to ask for an apology, but if they do find themselves in such a position I hope my story shows them that they’re not the first to be treated poorly and that it’s never wrong or too late to stand up for yourself. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qa8rNeqQbGGLpJm7PfMB3z00zcHMVAcobQj_ZRjvNgc/edit?usp=sharing
